Wardown House Interactives

Designed to look like a real billiard table, this centrepiece exhibit fits beautifully into the style of the Billiard Room. The 75” 4k interactive screen, though, gives visitors different modes in which to explore the rich content in bite-sized amounts and has been enjoyed by people from three to 80 years of age, and has thrilled experienced billiards players and complete novices alike.

At a simple level visitors can simply play a digital game of billiards and we’re delighted that even experts in the game have commented on the quality of game play. Suitable for multiple simultaneous users, the game can be played from all sides of the table.

The billiards explorer mode reveals a historical fact every time the visitor makes a scoring shot, depending on its difficulty. Content is displayed via locations on a map, revealed with game play, with images and media using the whole of the large screen. With a display area of this size and quality it is possible to see beautiful and fascinating detail that could be lost using other display formats.

The third mode allows visitors to explore the map just by touching an icon on the map without playing billiards but, it has to be said, playing the game is a huge part of the attraction with families playing against each other, crowds of spectators, and people who have never even heard of billiards before becoming engrossed.

The game has been particularly popular with a dementia group who have found it an absorbing way to explore local history.

This interactive exhibit presents a timeline of front pages from the Luton News dating from 1855 up to 2010 as well as a series of curated stories from over this period such as the development of local trams. The large screen is ideally suited to display the large format of broadsheet pages in all their fine detail and allows visitors to zoom in and pan around to enjoy the wonderful historic stories and adverts that interest them the most.

An attractor screen features front pages and images, the exhibit’s title, and instructions to touch the screen to start. The home screen features a timeline that visitors can drag along to change the year in view, previewing front pages and stories that will entice them to explore the content more deeply.

Visitors regularly spend 20 minutes or more engaged with this collection, spotting stories that they recognise from their own past or from well known local stories or simply enjoying the beauty of these charming local documents.

HLF
Luton Borough Council
Friends of Luton Museum
Murry Barford Trust
Garfield Weston Foundation
Steel Charitable Trust

Community Covenant
Betty Robinson Trust
Bedfordshire & Hertfordshire Regiment Trust
BIFFA
Rotary North Luton
DCMS Wolfson Foundation